Revenge and Redemption
by DeadlyDevotion
Summary: A sinister plot for revenge forces Syaoran to grow up in FWR's gang of heartless murderers. He's the only person who can stop Fei but the least willing to do so. Sakura, Fay and Kurogane will have to slap some sense into him before they're all dead SS KF
1. Syaoran meets Kuroganesan

_Xxx As a warning, this story is going to be darker than my usual fics so I will be raising it to M by the 4th chapter. Thanks for reading!  
_

* * *

Syaoran heard someone sit beside him in the alleyway. Instinctively, he flinched, turning to the side and saying, "Please---no more. Please just leave me alone--I'll die."

"You will," the boy agreed. A match was lit, followed by the heavy smell of nicotine. "Especially saying that sort of thing. If they know you're weak they'll torture you more. Get up before someone sees you."

Syaoran struggled to lift his mangled body but his skull slammed back hard onto the slime covered pavement. A thin stream of blood pooled down from his bangs and across his swollen right eye . Syaoran shut them and began to cry.

"Why...? Why did you do this to me?"

"You did this to yourself, kid. Everything is a choice. You choose to be weak and so you only have yourself to blame for rolling in your own blood. Get up before someone sees you," he repeated.

Syaoran raised his head again but it fell back.

"Get up," the voice said once more. It was a command, but a gentle one.

Syaoran turned onto his bruised stomach instead. Using his cut up arms as support, he pressed his beaten down body up from the ground before turning and pressing his back against the brick wall. Now that he was sitting he could see the stranger wasn't one of the boys that had attacked him and left him for dead.

"The next time something goes wrong don't just stand in self pity, kid. Realize that you choose it, learn from it, and move on."

Syaoran silently observed the stranger with interest. He was a larger boy as well as much older. There was something mocking in the boy's appearance and presence, but Syaoran preferred it to the devilish grins of the boys that beat him up. Even the boy's eyes, dark red and angry, were oddly comforting compared to the others.

The stranger looked down at Syaoran. "So have you decided?"

"On what?"

"If you're going to live or not."

Five year old Syaoran stared up into the red eyes without fear or hesitation. "I'm going to live."

"If that's the case then you'll have to come with me."

"…I can live with you?"

"I'll take you to a place where you'll be safe."

"….but why?"

"Because I decided." The stranger flicked the remainder of his cigarette out into the alley and stood up. "I've got somewhere to be, kid. If you're coming then you have to come now."

Syaoran became frantic when the boy started to leave without him. His body was still sore from the attack but his desire to be with the strange boy slowly overcame his pain. Syaoran crawled, then stumbled, until he was at the boy's side.

"You're not from here."

"N-No…I used to live in the north but my parents….t-they were killed…I'm supposed to live with my guardian but…he's disappeared."

"You can't return to that place until you decide to be strong."

"Huh?"

"Those guys will kill you if you return to where you belong. They meant for you to die tonight, just like they meant for your parents to die. You're only living because you decided not to die."

Syaoran paled to a sickly white.

The boy's lip pressed into a thin line as he said, "You'll live somewhere else until you're strong enough to return."

"But….what about school? And my homework? And my guardian?"

"Do you want to live?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll have to be dead for now."

"…I don't understand."

Instead of answering, the strange boy just kept walking. Syaoran struggled to keep up with the conversation and his movements. Blood was dripping profusely from his forehead and making him dizzy, but Syaoran kept on going, anxiously gluing himself to his new guardian. His shirt had been torn up to shreds so he took the fabric off the bottom of his pants and pressed it to his wound as he walked.

There were no street lights here, Syaoran realized. Not even a car light or a window being brightened by a lamp. The area was vacated. The few teenage boys that they did pass took one look at the pair of them and turned heel into the dark night. Syaoran didn't know where they were. The boys had dumped his body far from where he had been assigned to live with his guardian. The decrepit buildings were as unfamiliar to him as the boy at his side.

Eventually they came to a stop at one of the rundown buildings that had once been a theatre. The boy punched down the door and walked in. Syaoran followed after. Inside were a group of people, around the boy's age, sleeping on various items of filthy cloth. Before Syaoran could get a look at the sleeping faces the sound of a gunshot made them vanish.

The smoke and broken stone where the bullet had been lodged sizzled in the now vacant room, while the holder of the gun took one last look around before lowering his weapon.

"Your new home," the boy said, sliding the gun back under his jacket. When he pulled his hand out again he had a can of red spray paint. Syaoran watched with fascination as a red bat was sprayed across the wall that had been shot at.

The boy tossed the empty can away while his other hand pulled a brown bag out from his pocket. As Syaoran fumbled and caught it against his chest, the boy said, "You're safe now, kid."

Syaoran was too scared to move but managed to say, "You're leaving me?"

"Have to."

"But--"

"I already said you'd be safe, didn't I? If you want to live then it's up to you, so there's no point in me staying."

"What's your name?"

The boy paused and looked over his shoulder.

"My name is Syaoran."

"Kurogane," he muttered.

"Thank you, Kurogane-san."

Syaoran swore he heard, "Don't thank me just yet, kid," muttered under Kurogane's breathe, but by the time Syaoran opened his mouth to question the words, the boy was gone.

* * *


	2. Syaoran meets Feisama

* * *

_Xxx Slowly, slowly....  
_

* * *

"Well?"

"Well what? You want a fuckin' banner? I did what you wanted just like your damned smug smile already knows I would."

Fei Wang Reed smirked as he brought the glass of wine to his lips. Kurogane grit his teeth together. His hands itched to wring the man's neck, but he contained the urge by pressing his nails into his own legs as he waited for an answer.

"He's already at your house, Kurogane. Did you really think I would break a promise?"

Kurogane's hands lost their tension but his face was still hard. "So we're done?"

"For now." Although the windows of the limousine were shaded, lights from the expressway still spilled through the blackened glass, patching Fei's skin in a sickly red and yellow hue. "Because I know your price, I will call you back when necessary."

On seeing Kurogane's anger, Fei smirked and said, "But you can't be upset with me, Kurogane. After all, it's your choice to have something you consider precious. If you decided that thing wasn't precious anymore, then you'd never be taken advantage of."

As much as Kurogane hated the man and he hated the words, he knew they were true. So instead of punching the bastard in the face, Kurogane took down his sake until the limo rolled to a stop.

"Until next time," Fei mocked as he exited.

Kurogane slammed the door on his stupid face.

When he entered the darkened house, he half expected no one to be there and for the whole thing to be a scam. But, true as his deal, Fay was laying on the couch. Kurogane knelt in front of the couch and gently pressed two fingers to the man's neck to check for a pulse. Usually when the guy got too close to him Kurogane would get irritated, but when the blond boy shifted closer to the fingers Kurogane felt his fear wash away.

"Don't get any ideas about this," he said to the unconscious man. "I'm just making sure that guy kept his word. This doesn't change anything between us."

The blonde didn't even stir. Kurogane half admitted to himself that he'd almost rather have some annoying comment back then the chalk white face as his only response. Almost.

"You're still an idiot," Kurogane muttered as he laid a blanket around the man. "And now an even bigger pain in my ass then before….damnit, man. Why the hell did you have to be that kid's fuckin' guardian?"

Having Fay near him was like having a giant bag of money with a dollar sign slapped across it. As long as this guy was near him, Kurogane could be controlled and manipulated against his will. Whenever that guy wanted him to do something, probably something having to do with that damned kid, Kurogane would have to surrender his will for that punk faced asshole and his cockheaded gang.

He wouldn't run like everyone else did, though. And he wasn't going to sit here in fear just taking the crap from that man either.

The next time Fei Wang came, Kurogane would be ready for him.

* * *

The brick walls with their putrid smell and crumbling stones were tormenting. They hovered around him as slime and sewage water leaked from the rusted down skeletal pipes above him, splattering Syaoran in green and brown liquid. At first Syaoran had moved every time a rock fell on him or a drop of water greased his cheek but he was too weak to move now. He didn't know how much time had passed since Kurogane brought him to the building, but he did know that he had nothing to eat or no clean water to drink for awhile. Too afraid to remove himself from the area secured by the bat, Syaoran laid in the dirty clothe and stared off, waiting patiently for Kurogane to return to him.

He never came. Every waking moment he was alone, and every breath filled him with fresh pain.

His open wounds burned his body like fire, especially when the diseased water spilled into his cuts. Sometimes he would wake himself up, tossing and crying because the feeling was so unbearable. His eye hurt the worst though. He could no longer see out of his right eye and the distortion of vision produced hallucinations, sometimes convincing Syaoran that Kurogane was sitting next to him.

Kurogane-san would come back for him, though. Syaoran was sure that the man wouldn't let him die. He was sure....definitely.

His hope was flattened by the crack of steel. One of the pipes burst above him and a piece of the ceiling plunged down, slicing the joint of his knee. Syaoran barely recognized his own cry of anguish before passing out.

When he gained consciousness again he was in a pool of the dark green water and numb to everything. He didn't know how long he had been soaking in the pool of blood and vomit, or how much time passed with the steel and stone wedged through his leg but all at once, he was able to hear the splashing of water.

"....Kurogane-san?" he whispered.

When no answer came, the small hopeful smile that had appeared on Syaoran's face slipped away. He lifted his head and blinked mechanically onto the new arrival.

The figure nearing him was much bigger than Kurogane-san. But Kurogane-san had said that he would be safe. Syaoran trusted in that and so he was neither afraid nor nervous. A large man with a curious grin and pointy, hairy chin was what he saw. His clothes looked very rich, much like the clothes mother and father used to wear. Not at all like the rags that people from the south end of Clow City would wear. Syaoran's interest spiked as his eager amber eyes, still caked with blood, observed the man as a crate was pulled up to Syaoran's side. As the great man sat beside him and removed the steel beam from Syaoran's leg, more men filed in, creating a ring around the two of them.

"It's secure, Fei-sama," one of the men grumbled.

"No one would dare come on a marked space," another laughed. "Not unless he wanted it as a resting place."

"We're living in a world of trash can tombs and brick wall grave markers, here."

As soon as the man named Fei-sama sat down, Syaoran noticed the emblem on his tie. With childish wonder, Syaoran reached out and examined the fabric between his fingers. Syaoran looked up to the giant man, then to the same red bat emblem that Kurogane had sprayed across the wall.

"Kurogane-san is like you, then....," he said, smiling. "He put that on the wall...he said I would be safe."

The man just smirked onto his excited eyes as Syaoran trustingly relaxed his body against the men's leg, still examining the fabric.

"I told Kurogane-san that I wanted to live," he told him, as comfortably as he would have told his father. "He told me it was my choice and then said he'd take me somewhere safe….are you going to protect me too, Fei-sama?"

"You don't need protection."

Syaoran rubbed his bloody eye. "I don't?"

"If anything, people need protection from you, Syaoran."

"You...you know my name..." Syaoran brightened.

"Just as I know that the reason those boys tried to kill you was because they were afraid."

"...they were? Of what?"

"You. The son of a Satanist and a prostitute."

"I was afraid of them," Syaoran insisted shyly, as he fumbled with the tie.

"You weren't afraid. You knew you could kill them, but because you didn't want them to suffer like they were making you suffer, you let them push you just until the edge of death. Isn't that right?"

Syaoran was having a hard time understanding his words so he just stared down at the bat emblem and laid his head on the man's leg.

Syaoran felt a hand placed in his wet hair as Fei-sama said, "They hate you, don't they?"

"...they...they don't like me," he replied softly. "No one talks to me at school...."

"It's because they know you're better than them. They hate you for it, and want you dead because they can't stand the idea of someone being more powerful than them."

"...am I really that strong?" he asked sleepily.

"Yes. And as long as you stay with me, you'll always be safe from jealousy."

Syaoran's eyes began to close as he listened to Fei-sama talk to him. He still didn't understand the words but he was comforted by the large man. There was an air of strength and power surrounding him that convinced Syaoran that he would be safe and so Syaoran allowed himself to drift off into sleep.

"My sister was too soft on him. He trusts too easily," one of the women said, as soon as Syaoran was asleep.

"Can you blame her?" Fei-sama said as the woman, Xing Huo, lifted the lifeless child into into her arms. Syaoran snuggled closer under his aunt's chin, holding onto her fiercely as his hand took up a fistful of her shirt.

"It's the child who now has to suffer from her mistake. Being soft to your child only ensures that they will be hurt by someone else."

"And a hundred times worse because they won't know what pain is. Which is why I'm fortunate that my parents were who they were. He'll learn soon enough, though. They all learn."

She didn't grace him with a nod. But the hand that was resting on Syaoran's shoulder did flex protectively.

* * *


End file.
